Sounds like metal fatigue. You have to design to prevent that.

Surely you know that today's ithium ion technology is half an order of magnitude better energy density than when the tech was introduced, and it keeps improving every year. Yes the trend of battery energy density doubling every 8-ish years has continued under li-ion. Li-ion isn't a single chemistry, it's a family.

It's not simply electronics improvements that let the batteries in these devices keep getting smaller and smaller with each generation while battery life improves.

I don't get the obsession with ultracaps. Yes, they're advancing, but not faster than batteries. And they're 1 1/2 orders of magnitude behind on energy density, and even more on price. So why do people always seem to think they're the solution to everything?

Bottom line, though, is that battery tech isn't likely to continue to hold its ground for much longer

Citation needed. I follow battery tech pretty closely, and I see absolutely no signs of it slowing down; if anything, it seems to be speeding up, at each step, from theoretical concepts all the way own to commercialization of new technologies (for example, silicon anodes used to be only a lab tech, now they're starting to increasingly be used in commercial cells). There's many dozens to hundreds of majority improved li-ion anodes, cathodes, electrolytes, and membranes in the lab, in various stages of commercialization, from brand new to company-with-funding-is-setting-up-production-lines. And then there's a couple dozen different next-generation non-li-ion technologies. Li-air is usually the most heralded of these, offering the potential for greater range per kilogram than gasoline (even ignoring how dramatically smaller and lighter electric drivetrains are than gasoline drivetrains - not sure why people always ignore this when comparing "range"). However, li-air isn't my favorite; at least in the shorter-term, I'd say my favorite is probably lithium-sulfur. There's actually been a couple prototype devices powered by them, such as a solar airplane; they have superb energy density already but they need to get the lifespan up - which is precisely what's been happening in the lab.

Companies have been pumping water (usually wastewater or seawater) down wells since the start of the latter half of the 20th century, to restore pressure in oil reservoirs. So how is this anything new and anything connected with fracking?

Also, I don't unerstand why people make such a big deal out of these minor earthquakes which are general to small too feel even if you're paying attention for them. The amount of energy they're dealing with is only in the ballpark of these tiny quakes; compared to a large earthquake, it'd be like a mouse trying to push a boulder off a cliff. Either the boulder is ready to go or it's not, the mouse makes essentially no difference.

Normally I'd disagree with you, because most manufacturers these days buy so many of their parts from 3rd party manufacturers, they're the ones that profit from replacements. But given how much Tesla manufactures in-house, and how with each generation they keep putting more emphasis on keeping it all in-house, there may be some truth to that.

None of those things apply to the design. There's no drywall; the plans for the home are of a "steampunk" style, with conduits for wiring/piping visible but done decoratively. Hence replacing them doesn't involve ripping out drywall. It's a highly open floor plan; anyone in the future can put up additional walls if they want smaller rooms, but otherwise it's wide open.

As for why? If I'm building something, I want it to outlive me. I want future generations to see it. When most everything else from our current era is long gone, I want that which I did to still be standing. Is that so strange? It's like planting a sequoia. You'll never live to see it be a giant. But if you plant it in a place where it can thrive, it'll endure for people to enjoy for hundreds of generations.

Haha, brilliant! ;) It's a carbon offset program! ;)

No problem :) I first did my own research, then met up with the president of the Icelandic Concrete Association, who's pretty excited about the project, to discuss it further. The project is going to be unusual in quite a few ways, for example, it's going to be what's called an "umbrella earth home", and we're going for a natural cave/steampunk look to it (based on an idea that the concrete guy had, we're going to use high pressure water on the interior after the concrete sets to remove the outer layers of cement from the gravel, leaving it looking like rough rock on the inside). It may not be a first in the world, but it'll be a first for Iceland. :)

I've been thinking about the long term on everything with the project. For example, instead of drilling a well to pump from, I'm having the cold water come from a persistent natural spring up on the mountainside about half a kilometer away, naturally filtered through gravel and sand (my excavator operator is working on it as we speak, actually), so it takes no power to run and should last very well. Wells are standard where I am but I found I could get water from the spring for about the same price, maybe even less.

I'm not an expert, but the steel is protected from corrosion in most forms of concrete due to the mildly alkaline chemistry of the concrete.

Gee, I wish I'd written something like:

The cement carbonates at a relatively constant rate (give or take somewhat depending on various factors like moisture), a given depth per year, which brings it down to a more neutral pH, which then when it gets to the steel allows the steel to rust

;)

And if you throw on sacrificial metal [wikipedia.org], you can keep that steel corrosion-free indefinitely.

Galvanic protection of concrete is rather tricky versus something like a ship's hull, the electric potential depends a lot on its environment, even where it is in the structure, and if there's too little it doesn't protect and if there's too much you cause electrolysis of the water in the cement (it's a hydrate), which leads to hydrogen embrittlement of the steel. And it's usually not some single electrode, it's generally a lot of separate cast electrodes or are applied to the concrete as a coating, so it's a big issue to replace/redo. And if you don't, it rusts and falls apart.

I strongly prefer passively stable structures. :) Something that could be completely forgotten and still be there after a thousand years.

The question is not whether you "can", it's what it costs and what constraints it imposes. It's possible to make an EV that goes a good chunk of a thousand miles, it'd just be a totally impractical absurdly-expensive monstrosity.

No question that batteries are advancing - usually a gravimetric energy density doubling every 8 years or so. But the trend for volumetric isn't as impressive, and the price changes per watt hour are far less predictable. Sometimes the next generation which improves your battery stats is more expensive than the previous one. Sometimes it's cheaper. Overall the trend is negative, but it's very bumpy and not as fast.

I saw a Tesla store in Reykjavík the other day. Haven't seen a Tesla on the roads, but still, neat to know that they're here. :)

Shortening a car is usually bad for aerodynamics, which is bad for range. Lowering the roofline reduces the frontal area, which increases the range, but are you sure there'd be enough headroom if you did that?

It's weaker, so the weight savings on major structural components isn't as great there. But I agree with you, I find this an odd move on their part. Unless they've got something out of left field in mind, like a composite frame.

I really despise steel. I just got back from walking over to a muffler repair shop to have them fix a flange that's rusted away for my pickup. : One of many, many parts that's had to be swapped out over the past year due to rust damage. Oh, I better go back out and spray bolts on my Insight with some rust remover after I submit this post... got to do that daily now for a week or so or those rusted-to-hell bolts are going to strip when I remove the cover to change out the gasket. And the Insight is an "aluminum" car - but the engine is still mostly steel.

I'm building a house now and am even looking to avoid steel in the concrete. For the foundation, we're just going to use fiber for reinforcement. For the walls (assuming the engineer signs off on it) we're going to use basalt fiber rebar. Most people don't realize that when you design a concrete wall, you decide how long it's going to live. The cement carbonates at a relatively constant rate (give or take somewhat depending on various factors like moisture), a given depth per year, which brings it down to a more neutral pH, which then when it gets to the steel allows the steel to rust (the highly basic environment normally protects it). When steel rusts it expands nearly tenfold, and thus the wall spalls out and is ruined. The lack of use of pozzolan in concrete because everyone wants it to harden super-fast so they can finish and move on to the next project only makes the problem worse. Roman concrete (with a volcanic ash pozzolan and no steel) has lasted for thousands of years, but little that we build today with concrete will last even 100, and in hostile environments (for example, bridges near the ocean) you may only get a couple decades. Basalt rebar should hopefully allow for the durability of ancient concrete while allowing for the tensile strength of modern concrete (my home is also going to have a vaulted structure to keep as much force as possible as compressive force, which concrete naturally tolerates well), and I'm going to use a pozzolan (basalt dust), which minimizes the CO2 footprint as well as increasing ultimate strength, durability, and watertightness. Oh, and my gravel/sand will also be basalt, and it's being built on basalt bedrock. ;) Mmm, lava....

I disagree. Most people don't have a car that can move furniture or large appliances. They just pay to rent a vehicle for those occasions. I find it odd that they don't apply the same logic to EVs. No car solves every imaginable situation. A good furniture mover's not likely to be an affordable commuter. Both will likely suck on the track. All three of those will likely suck off road. Etc. Vehicles come in radically different varieties for precisely that reason.

Actually, my preferred solution for EV range is like the AC Propulsion Long-Hauler trailer - a small self-steering (aka, easy to drive) genset trailer. You could own one, rent one, borrow one, have a group of friends/neighbors that share one, whatever. You've got range when you need it, and are otherwise you're pure electric and not having to haul around an engine that you don't use and which takes up space and weight in your vehicle (aka, PHEV).

If they go with steel instead of aluminum that'll probably cost them about 10% range (matters less for big structural elements, but overall it has a significant weight difference), which means more batteries. Seems weird that this would work out to be overall more economical.